How to Liven Up Any Room with Succulents

If you have clicked on this post, then you are most likely interested in using succulents in your home decor, and I personally don’t blame you. Succulents are a great modern way to bring life and color into any room of your home. From your bedroom to your bathroom and every room in between, you can’t go wrong with succulents as your theme (Unintentional rhyme, but I sound like a poet). Anyways, if you are struggling to find the right places to use succulents in your decor, don’t want your room to look tacky, or don’t know if your succulents can survive in all of your rooms, hopefully I can be of some help. In this post, I will elaborate on how to decorate bedrooms, bathrooms, living rooms, dining rooms, and kitchens with adorable plants, or at least an adorable plant theme. Incorporating succulents doesn’t necessarily mean you have to own tons of the plants. The cute decor idea can be incorporated in other aspects. I wouldn’t suggest using a succulent theme throughout your entire house, but these are just some ideas if you have a specific room that you don’t know where to start. However, a subtle succulent in each room wouldn’t be a bad thing as long as you know what you’re doing.

Why I Love to Decorate with Succulents

As a lover of modern decor, succulents are my go to when a room needs something more. (Oh snap, another unintentional rhyme.) When I first moved into my apartment earlier this year, I was super excited to start decorating. I knew I had the freedom to make my room look however I wanted, and I would say the way I wanted it to look was simple. I am not a flashy person, and I wanted my decor to be aesthetically pleasing as well as minimalist. And maybe it is because of my generation, but succulents seem to do the trick for me.

For several reasons, succulents are the perfect decor piece for any room.

For starters, decorating with succulents can be very inexpensive. There are so many ways to dress up the way you plant succulents, and in a lot of cases this can be done using dollar store items or recycled materials. Now, you may be thinking, dollar store decor is cheap and not cute, and DIYs are not my thing. But if you are concerned about that, then you are probably willing to invest more into your decor, so lets touch on some other reasons why decorating with succulents is great.

They match basically any color scheme. Try to think of a color combo that a succulent would not look good with. If you can think of one then, well, I don’t know what to say, because I think they go with anything as long as you have the right potting. Blue? Super cute. Yellow? Feels like sunshine. White? Modern. I like it. Pink? Still cute. You get my point. Very versatile.

They bring life to dull spaces. And if you hate succulents, or have never owned one, then first of all, get off of my blog, but second of all, it is hard to say that some cute succulent decor wouldn’t liven up an area. The feeling you get when you walk into a house with plants on display, is always a good one, at least for me. But if you still don’t like the idea of bringing nature in your house, then there are several other ways to display succulent decor. Almost any piece of decor you are looking for, you can probably put “succulent” in front of, and you will get some search results.

Some rooms may be more obvious when it comes to where to put succulents. For example, sun room, bedroom, and living room are definitely good places, but in my opinion, you can’t go wrong when it comes to the kitchen, dining room, or bathroom either. So let’s go already. Let’s dive into some ideas for how to use succulents in your home decor.

Bedroom

Ah, your bedroom. Your own little space to relax and go when you get tired of everyone else. As a college student living in an apartment, this really is my go to space when it comes to succulent decor. And in my opinion, it is a great place to start, because if initially you hate the way it looks, chances are not many people but you see your bedroom anyway. Now lets get some ideas rolling.

Windowsill

My number one favorite space for succulents is the windowsill. And I know, I know, obviously a windowsill is a great spot for sun loving plants, but there are more ways to dress up the window than you may think. One idea I find really cute is one long narrow boxy planter that spreads across the windowsill. If you’re the crafty type, then this can be easily done with some wood, but if not, I have seen the likes at Michael’s craft store. What I personally do in my room is have one cute tin bucket looking planter in the middle of the window with small wooden planters on either side and terracotta pots on either side of those. So, I’d say its really up to you where you want to go with this.

Desk

In my room both at school and at home, my desk takes up some major space in my room, but I struggle to make it look appealing. The first idea for desk planters is small concrete planters at the back of the desk. Something else that would be cute is a glass terrarium desk planter. However, the possibilities are numerous, and I know I would spend more time at my desk if it looked super cute.

Prints

Finally, if you like the idea of succulent decor, but aren’t wanting the physical plant, there is always the option to hang up some succulent prints. I actually just bought four 8x10 cactus prints to hang on an empty wall in my room, and I have to say, they look pretty dang good. For best results, I suggest having a minimum of two prints. (And make sure they are framed.) Some simple framed prints can go a long way when it comes to making your room feel complete.

Living room

The living room. Believe it or not, this is another great place to bring succulents into your home. When guests walk into a room with some plants, they will surely admire your decor. (But maybe I am a tad bit biased.) While you can still decorate on windowsills or with prints, there are some spots more specific to the living room that could use some succulents.

Hanging/Shelves

Another great place for succulent decor in your home is hanging or on shelves. You can buy wall hanger succulent planters on Amazon, or make your own rope hangers super cheap and easy. I’ve grouped shelves in here too because I am referring to small floating shelves. Once again, making small shelves yourself would not be hard, and let’s face it, it would be adorable. I have seen shelves made with popsicle sticks, and that’s first grade art right there. If you can read this, you can make a popsicle shelf.

Coffee Table

My Current living room does not have a coffee table because like I have mentioned, I live in a college apartment. However, a succulent as a sort of centerpiece to a small living room table = cute. I wouldn’t go with anything too big here, but if you have a bare coffee table that needs a little bit more, (I bet you already know what I am about to say)... add a succulent.

Book Shelves

Again, I don’t know what your living room looks like, but if you have a bookshelf and a succulent with no home, the top shelf might just work perfectly. Shoot, while you’re at it, why not just line the entire top of the bookcase with plants. For real though, a plant here and there on your boring old bookshelf could give it some new life.

Dining room

I don’t know if most families actually use their dining room, but for the sake of this post, lets just refer to the dining room as where your dinner table is. Succulents here would give the room a less formal feel, so if you’re into that, you may want to consider the following.

Centerpiece

A succulent centerpiece on your dining table can give the table a nice look, and the great thing about it is that it wouldn’t need to be very tall, so dinner conversation over the centerpiece is still possible. For my centerpiece suggestions, I would first recommend a bowl arrangement. This would look lively but still have the foody feel. I also like the idea of a candle being incorporated in the centerpiece. You can search for examples of this, and once again, there are some easy DIYs to do.

Coasters

Once again, to incorporate succulents into a room’s decor, you don’t necessarily need a physical plant. In the dining room, some subtle succulent coasters would work nicely. Too much succulent theme on a table can look tacky, but a coaster is small enough that the risk of being too much is not as high. Once again, you can find coasters like this on Amazon. But really, what can’t you find on Amazon.

Kitchen

Kitchens are more of a practical space with a specific purpose, so I have some ideas that won’t clutter your food prep area, or counter space. That being said, kitchens should not be neglected when it comes to decor. Cooking and doing dishes is already a chore, so why not make the space inviting with some cute succulent decor. (I swear these rhymes are not on purpose.)

Cabinets

Most kitchen cabinets have space above them. Space that is basically meant for decoration. Succulents here can work, but will be more difficult to get looking good. I would suggest longer growing ones that can hang down slightly such as a string of pearls plant. I also think that hanging plants from the bottoms of your kitchen cabinets could work too, as long as it doesn’t take up too much of your food preparation space. This would be the perfect place for one of those rope hangers I mentioned earlier.

Refrigerator Magnets

If you frequently use magnets to put things on the fridge, I personally think a matching set of magnets looks best. And what better design than succulents. A cute idea would be to make cork magnets with live succulents, but if you aren't feeling the live ones here, succulents are so “in” right now that you can buy almost anything with a picture of a succulent on it.

Bathroom

I like to think that bathroom decor is important to make the space not look stinky. This may seem weird to some people, but succulents are actually a great bathroom theme. Succulents give rooms a more natural feel, and the bathroom is a room that you want to be inviting, because everyone uses it.

Back of the toilet

A basket with succulents on the back of the toilet seat can make an otherwise gross space, a little less, well, gross. I suggest a larger, shallow planter here that spans the length of the toilet back and would highly advise you to stay away from terracotta pots in this instance. But done correctly, this can be super cute. Clean crisp succulents can give even a bathroom a clean crisp feel.

Paintings

This is my last suggestion I swear, and if you have gotten this far, then kudos to you. (I don’t even know what kudos means, but I think it fits in this context.) Back to the point though, a bathroom painting of some succulents can really cuten the place up, and a succulent painting in this day and age is not hard to find. Obviously one would look good in more rooms than just the bathroom, but bathrooms have limited options when it comes to succulent decor. So there’s an idea.

Hopefully at least one thing in this post helped with what you came here for. And if you were hoping for something more, then I encourage you to experiment with some succulent decor yourself to find out exactly what works in your home.

For more information about some DIYs I mentioned, make sure to view my upcoming posts with some step by step DIY ideas. And if you enjoyed this post, then I encourage you to subscribe and visit our “Follow Us” page to make sure you don’t miss posts you may also be interested in. Until next time my friends.